Colonial Streets and Statues: Postcolonial Belgium in the Public Space

Abstract

Belgium has a very one-sided way of dealing with its colonial past in its public space. The country has hundreds of street names and memorials for white colonials, but not a single tribute to a Congolese. There are at least fifteen monuments for King Leopold II, some of which are occasionally vandalized, but only one presents a plaque with background information. Only one other monument, for a missionary in Antwerp, has been contextualized with an interpretive panel. The demand of Congolese migrants to name a square in the Brussels borough Ixelles/Elsene after Lumumba, has yet to be satisfied after more than ten years.

This situation contrasts that of other former colonial metropoles and can be explained by several factors. Belgium has far fewer postcolonial migrants, who in other countries often have the loudest and most critical voice in the postcolonial debate. Moreover, the postcolonial fight in Belgium is waged with sensitive symbols: a king (Leopold II) and an assassinated prime minister (Lumumba). This makes the debate much more emotionally charged. Last but not least, Belgium has gone through a great identity crisis over the past ten years. Left-wing pundits, who are traditionally more critical of the colonial past, and mainstream opinion-makers have avoided sparking the postcolonial debate so as to not fuel Flemish nationalism.

Notes on contributor

Idesbald Goddeeris is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), where he teaches several courses related to the history of European Colonisation. His research mainly focuses on the relationship of Western societies with other cultures and political regimes. He particularly examines this by means of the history of migration, European identities, transnational social movements, east-west and north-south contacts, development aid, and postcolonial memories. Goddeeris has recently published in Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (2015), Journal of Contemporary History (2015), Ethnicities (2014), and Social Transformations: Journal of the Global South (2013). He was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics (2009) and the University of Pennsylvania (2014), and recently also lectured at the universities of Krakow, Irkutsk, Kinshasa, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata.

Notes

1 Idesbald Goddeeris, ‘Postcolonial Belgium: The Memory of the Congo’, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 17(3), 2015, pp 434–451.

2 Elleke Boehmer and Sarah De Mul (eds), The Postcolonial Low Countries. Literature, Colonialism and Multiculturalism, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2012. The topic of postcolonial memory in French-language literature has been studied since the project Papier blanc, encre noire (White paper, black ink) was launched in 1989 to strengthen the dialogue between Belgian and African literature. It led to exhibitions, conferences, and publications, ranging from the pioneering study by Marc Quaghebeur, Emile Van Balberghe et al. (eds), Papier blanc, encre noire. Cent ans de culture francophone en Afrique centrale (Zaire, Rwanda et Burundi), Brussels: Editions Labor, 1992, to the review Congo-Meuse (published from 1997 onward by the Centre d’études des littératures belge et congolaise de langue française, seated in Mbuji-Mayi, Congo), up to the most recent José Domingues De Almeida et al. (eds), Nos et leurs Afriques: Constructions littéraires des identités africaines cinquante ans après la décolonisation, Bern: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2014.

3 See the different essays by Matthias De Groof in Rekto:verso, 2010, 2011, and 2013, and Sarah Demart and Mireille-Tsheusi Robert, ‘Le film “Black”: un cocktail de racisme postcolonial!’, La Libre Belgique, 23 November 2015.

4 Jean-Luc Vellut (ed), La Mémoire du Congo: le temps colonial, Ghent: Snoeck and Tervuren: Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, 2005; Geert Castryck, ‘Whose History Is History? Singularities and Dualities of the Public Debate on Belgian Colonialism’, in Lévai Csaba (ed), Europe and the World in European Historiography, Pisa: Edizioni Plus–Pisa University Press, 2006, pp 71–88; Goddeeris, ‘Postcolonial Belgium’.

5 François Andrillon, Koen Bogers, Antoon De Baets et al., Racisme continent obscur: clichés, stéréotypés, phantasmes à propos des noirs dans le royaume de Belgique, Bruxelles: Coopération par l’Education et la Culture, 1991; Bambi Ceuppens, Onze Congo? De Congolezen over de kolonisatie, Leuven: Davidsfonds, 2003; Sarah Demart, ‘Congolese Migration to Belgium and Postcolonial Perspectives’, African Diaspora, 6, 2013, pp 1–20.

6 Some earlier studies only concentrate on the most prominent cases and lack systematic reflection. See for instance the website http://cas1.elis.ugent.be/avrug/erfgoed/erfgoed.htm; the MA thesis by Davy Verbeke, Gecontesteerd Koloniaal Erfgoed (Universiteit Gent 2011. Available at: http://users.telenet.be/brechtt/stage/index.html); the lecture by Bambi Ceuppens, ‘Les monuments coloniaux: Lieux de mémoire contestés’, 27 September 2008. Available at: http://bougnoulosophe.blogspot.be/2008/11/les-monuments-coloniaux-lieux-de-mmoire.html); the essay by Gia Abrassart and Joachim Ben Yakoub, ‘Tijd voor de dekolonisatie van België’, Rekto:verso, 62, 2014. Available at: http://www.rektoverso.be/artikel/tijd-voor-de-dekolonisatie-van-belgi%C3%AB); the walking guide about colonial heritage in Belgium by Lucas Catherine, Wandelen naar Kongo: Langs koloniaal erfgoed in Brussel en België, Berchem: Epo, 2006. Belgium has also been neglected in the international literature. See for instance Dominik Geppert and Frank Lorenz Müller (eds), Sites of Imperial Memory: Commemorating Colonial Rule in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Manchester: University Press, 2015; Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Berny Sèbe and Gabrielle Maas (eds), Echoes of Empire: Memory, Identity and Colonial Legacies, London: IB Tauris, 2015. The exception is a chapter by Peter Monaville, ‘A Distinctive Ugliness: Colonial Memory in Belgium’, in Dietmar Rothermund (ed), Memories of Post-Imperial Nations: The Aftermath of Decolonization, 1945–2013, Delhi: Routledge, 2015, pp 58–76, but the author goes far back in time, uses a limited number of examples for the most recent periods and omits crucial opinion-makers, including David Van Reybrouck.

7 Guy Vanthemsche, Belgium and the Congo: 1885–1980, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p 24.

8 See international comparisons in Robin A. Butlin, Geographies of Empire: European Empires and Colonies c. 1880–1960, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p 434; David B. Abernethy, The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 1415–1980, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, pp 126 and 158.

9 Jean Stengers, Congo. Mythes et réalités, Bruxelles: Racine, 2007, p 206.

10 De Standaard, 16 November 2001, quoting the conclusions of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry.

11 Matthew G. Stanard, Selling the Congo: A History of European Pro-Empire Propaganda and the Making of Belgian Imperialism, Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2012, pp 167–202.

12 These street names, combined with ‘Belgium’, immediately give several hits on googlemaps.be.

13 Much information on Brussels street names is available at www.reflexcity.net and www.irismonument.be/. I presented a paper about this topic (‘Belgian (Post)Colonial Memory Reflected in Brussels Street Names’, International Directions in Critical Place-Name Research and the Vienna Case Study, Vienna, 6–7 May 2013), which I am turning into a more extensive Dutch-language article. According to Lucas Catherine, the entire country has 98 colonial streets, but this seems to be an underestimation (Abrassart and Ben Yakoub, ‘Tijd’).

14 The most extensive articles in De Morgen, 16 April 2005 and 11 August 2014; De Krant van West-Vlaanderen/Zeewacht, 21 November 2008 and 18 April 2014.

15 Het Laatste Nieuws/De Nieuwe Gazet, 5 December 2006 and 25 July 2007; Het Nieuwsblad, 10 November 2009. Available at: http://video.rtlinfo.be/video/Leopold-II-Genocidaire-/107130.aspx; Le Vif/L’Express, 11 January 2013; Knack, 17 September 2008 (Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG6GbBoZGNg); De Morgen, 11 September 2008; De Standaard, 7 July 2010; La Capitale, 17 March 2013.

16 Het Nieuwsblad, 24 June 2004.

17 Het Nieuwsblad/Aan Gent gebonden, 18 June 2010, 30 June 2010, and 1 July 2010; Knack, 28 July 2010.

18 Het Nieuwsblad, 11 July 2001; Het Laatste Nieuws/Pajottenland, 28 and 29 October 2004; De Standaard/Vlaams-Brabant/Brussel, 15 September 2009.

19 Catherine, Wandelen, pp 42–43; Stanard, Selling, pp 1–2, 169 and 175–176. Brussel Nieuws, 15 June 2011 announces the establishment of a plaque, but this was not put into practice.

20 Het Laatste Nieuws/Oostende-Westkust, 11 July 2003, 10 February 2004, and 20 May 2005; Krant van West-Vlaanderen, 6 May 2005 and 21 November 2008; De Morgen, 5 August 2013; Catherine, Wandelen, pp 97–98.

21 Het Belang van Limburg, 5 January 2002 and 27 April 2005; Het Nieuwsblad/Meetjesland-Leiestreek, 7 June 2008.

22 Le Soir, 6 June 2005; L’Avenir, 6 June 2005.

23 Het Laatste Nieuws/Brugge-Oostkust, 14 and 24 April 2004. Available at: http://www.bloggen.be/zucheroke/archief.php?catID=20816, 5 February 2013; Gazet van Antwerpen/Waasland, 12 and 17 July 2010.

24 Het Nieuwsblad/Antwerpen, 26 February 2009, 3 October 2009, and 23 January 2010; Gazet van Antwerpen/Metropool Stad, 5 November 2009, 12 May 2011, and 19 April 2012.

25 Gazet van Antwerpen/Metropool Stad, 22 October 2013; Het Laatste Nieuws, 22 May 2015.

26 Available at: http://www.kifkif.be/actua/zwarte-piet-racistisch (23 October 2013); De Wereld Morgen, 30 October 2013.

27 New York Times, 26 March 2014 (Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/world/europe/belgium-satire-racism-obama.html); New York Magazine, 25 March 2014. Available at: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/belgium-obama-racist-caricature-cookie.html#.

28 The Guardian, 14 May 2012.

29 De Standaard, 22 June 2010 and 13 December 2012; De Morgen, 13 May 2013.

30 Respectively http://www.lumumba.be/, http://tetitatutis.ning.com/, and https://www.facebook.com/placelumumbaplein, all next to the homepage http://www.memoirecoloniale.be/.

31 Belga, 30 June 2015; La Capitale, 29 July 2015.

32 http://ixelles.blogs.sudinfo.be/archive/2013/10/25/nous-irons-remettre-la-plaque-si-elle-est-enlevee-84902.html; http://ixelles.blogs.sudinfo.be/archive/2013/08/08/une-place-patrice-lumumba-dans-le-quartier-saint-boniface.html; http://www.brusselnieuws.be/nl/nieuws/elsense-mr-tegen-lumumbaplein; www.rtl.be/info/votreregion/bruxelles/1042727/ixelles-il-n-y-aura-pas-de-place-lumumba.

33 Krant van West-Vlaanderen/Zeewacht, 2 July 2010 and 17 October 2014.

34 La Libre Belgique, 24 September 2007.

35 Equestrian statues in Brussels and Ostend; statues in Arlon, Ekeren (near Antwerp), Elsene/Ixelles, Mons, and Namur; busts in Ghent, Genval, Halle, Hasselt, Ostend, Oudergem/Auderghem, Tervuren and Vorst/Forest.

36 For instance a cartoon in the Flemish daily De Standaard, 7 August 2015, and a picture of the French-language socialist Laurette Onkelinx on https://www.facebook.com/placelumumbaplein, 9 April 2014.

37 For instance: Belga, 16 January 2011 and 16 February 2012; La Capitale, 7 April 2012; Belga, 6 October 2012; La Libre Belgique, 22 June 2013.

38 Gert Oostindie, Postkoloniaal Nederland: vijfenzestig jaar vergeten, herdenken, verdringen, Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, 2010; John Jansen Van Galen, Afscheid van de koloniën, Amsterdam-Antwerpen: Atlas-Contact, 2013, pp 517–555; Andrew Kershman, London’s Monuments, London: Metro Publication Ltd, 2007; Joachim Zeller, ‘Decolonization of the Public Space? (Post)Colonial Culture of Remembrance in Germany’, in Ulrike Lindner, Maren Möhring, Mark Stein and Silke Stroh (eds), Hybrid Cultures – Nervous States. Britain and Germany in a (Post)Colonial World, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010, pp 65–88; Robert Aldrich, ‘Commemorating Colonialism in a Post-Colonial World’, E-rea, 10(1), 2012, available at: http://erea.revues.org/2803.

39 Quentin Schoonvaere, Studie over de Congolese migratie en de impact ervan op de Congolese aanwezigheid in België. Analyse van de voornaamste demografische gegevens, Brussel: Studiegroep Toegepaste Demografie (UCL) & Centrum voor Gelijkheid van Kansen en voor Racismebestrijding, 2010, pp 12 and 20.

40 Oostindie, Postkoloniaal Nederland, pp 11 and 32; Ulbe Bosma e.a. (ed), Postcolonial Migrations and Identity Politics: Europe, Russia, Japan and the United States in Comparison, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012.

41 Sarah Demart, ‘Histoire oral à Matonge (Bruxelles): Un miroir postcolonial’, Revue européenne des migrations internationales, 29, 2013, pp 133–155; Hans Vandecandelaere, In Brussel. Een reis door de wereld, Berchem: Epo, 2012, pp 186–189.

42 Zeller, ‘Decolonization’, p 76.

43 http://anjaashiwatshumbe.over-blog.org/article-inauguration-de-la-statue-de-patrice-emery-lumumba-en-allemagne-berlin-120531870.html; http://www.radiookapi.net/actualite/2013/10/10/deux-statues-de-patrice-emery-lumumba-inaugurees-en-allemagne/#more-163198. The bust in Leipzig, which originally dates from 1961, was stolen in 1997 and vandalised after 2011.

44 Although Congolese tend to sympathise with the N-VA, as elaborated upon by Monaville, ‘A Distinctive’, pp 74.

45 For instance, at his equestrian statue in Brussels after the broadcasting of Peter Bate’s documentary (La Dernière Heure, 10 April 2004) and the centenary of his passing away (Belga, 16 and 17 December 2009).

46 Jamina Mertens e.a., ‘A New Floor for the Silenced? Congolese Hip-Hop in Belgium’, Journal of Social Transformation 1(1), 2013, pp 87–113.

47 Het Parool, 6 February 2013; Jeune Afrique, 3 September 2013 (Available at: http://www.jeuneafrique.com/192597/culture/congo-une-histoire-un-succ-s-belge/), taken over in AFP, 31 October 2013.

48 Belga, 23 April 2015.

49 Matthias De Groof, ‘De Congo-nostalgie van de VRT’, Rekto:Verso, 43, September–October 2010.

50 Guido Convents, ‘VRT en 50 jaar Congo: de wansmaak voorbij’, De Wereld Morgen, 6 July 2010; Robrecht Vanderbeeken, ‘Documentaire als realiteit. Over Spectres van Sven Augustijnen’, Streven 2, 2012, pp 134–143.

51 Goddeeris, ‘Postcolonial Belgium’, pp 440–442.

52 Many examples in Johnny Van Hove’s contribution to De Wereld Morgen: Available at: http://www.dewereldmorgen.be/artikels/2013/11/13/van-zwarte-piet-naar-kuifje-en-leopold-culturele-dekolonisatie-broodnodig.

53 De Tijd, 1 August 2015 versus, inter alia, Chicago Tribune, 19 February 2015; Times Higher Education, 26 February 2015; The Spectator, 7 March 2015; Wall Street Journal, 3 April 2015. The book: Emmanuel Gerard and Bruce Kuklick, Death in the Congo. Murdering Patrice Lumumba, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.

54 See Ludo De Witte’s comment on the report of the re-enactment of Lumumba’s speech on 30 June 2015 (Available at: https://www.facebook.com/placelumumbaplein), or the self-criticism of VRT [Flemish Public Broadcasting] journalist Lieven Verstraete on his own coverage of Black Pete (Available at: http://www.dewereldmorgen.be/artikel/2014/11/25/jullie-stellen-dingen-in-vraag-en-terecht-een-gesprek-met-lieven-verstraete). A report with critical comments from the African diaspora ended with a black woman asking a kiss from Black Pete and then leaving with him, her arm around his waist. See http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/videozone/programmas/terzake/2.30559 (from minute 30:22) and http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/videozone/programmas/terzake/2.39738?video=1.2380583.

55 The single exception is a brief mention in an article that appeared both in De Standaard and in Le Soir on 20 September 2012.

56 Le Soir, 18 March 2010.

57 La Libre Belgique, 19 March 2015.

58 Het Laatste Nieuws, 1 June 2015.